


Sensations

by Hydriatus



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21846919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hydriatus/pseuds/Hydriatus
Summary: Sensations were not a new thing for Hordak. He had the basic five like any of his kin: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He just...never really thought on them much.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 151





	Sensations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [B_Dazzled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Dazzled/gifts).



Sensations were not a new thing for Hordak. He had the basic five like any of his kin: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He just...never really thought on them much.

* * *

Hordak supposed if he cared for such mundane things as schedules, he would be considered a late worker – more than once he had slaved away over a piece of technology or a theorem long past the midnight hour. The Force Commanders followed a strict regime that ensured they were well rested at all times, ready to enact the next strategy that they could agree upon against the Rebellion.

His red eyes narrowed as he scrutinised the mathematical equations spread out over the papers laid out on the desk before him. The small lamp in the corner provided adequate illumination to let him read, leaving the rest of his lab shrouded in darkness. He preferred it that way – with all his failures hidden away in the deep shadows. As if they did not exist, monuments mocking his inadequacies.

There was a clattering and a clanging. Once, such sounds would have been irritating distractions and a reminder for him to reprimand the maintenance teams responsible for keeping the various machinery in this section of the Fright Zone operating at peak efficiency. Now, they were simply heralds to-

“Gah!” cried out Entrapta as she fell from the ceiling ducts.

Hordak closed his eyes and sighed.

His assistant was quite skilled, but had some quirks which made it...difficult to for him to forget that she was still an Etherian and not one of his kin. Like her love of travelling via air ducts like some saboteur, rather than simple using the corridors like anyone else in the Horde.

The true Horde. Not this...pale imitation he had managed to cobble together out of whatever he could find.

“Sorry,” the Princess mumbled as she got up from where she had fallen in a heap, looming over his shoulder to look at what held his attention, balanced ever so expertly on the two thick tendrils of hair she sometimes used for locomotion instead of her own legs. “Hey, these are my formulas!”

Hordak nodded, keeping his attention on the papers. “Indeed. Your grasp on the theories involved in the creation of portals is sound. Your ingenuity in breaking them however is new to me.”

He felt her pull back, and heard the soft tap of her boots coming to rest on the floor. “No one’s ever thanked me for breaking something before...”

“Foolishness. I am sure you have been commended before on...how do you put it, ‘cracking’ a problem?” he retorted, glancing away from her messy but precise handwriting and to her face. She seemed unsure again. His eyes narrowed in displeasure.

“Sure, but that’s just a way of saying I solved a problem you know?” she explained with a shrug, before walking over to join him by the dimly lit desk. “But no one’s ever...I mean, things go wrong all the time but no one thanks me for it,” the woman added, waving a gloved hand over the papers, the motion drawing Hordak’s attention. Her gloves were heavy, made of a thick layer of leather or rubber from some species native to Etheria.

Hordak’s red gaze followed as she pointed out a collection of numbers laid out almost at the edge of the light. The purple glove was almost a similar shade to her hair, he noted, though slightly discoloured in places from electrical and chemical burns. Marks of her own failures, ever present and on display like some medals.

He paused at that, even as Entrapta continued to talk, pointing out some of the theoretical formulas she had already disproved. Noticing burns on her gloves was...new. Usually only he only noted such minor details on his own work. Was...was his eyesight adapting? Or had he trained himself to pick out flaws over the years of working to exact specifications?

Entrapta of course did not notice his pondering, already scribbling on the paperwork, crossing out some formulas whilst circling others which seemed promising.

* * *

Though he would have enjoyed testing his improved eyesight, his responsibilities came first. And a part of that was making regular appearances in his throne room, to remind the Horde that he was the ultimate authority.

The Force Commanders had been gathered and they had made their usual reports, covering the progress or lack thereof the Horde was making in conquering Etheria. He had glared and uttered the usual responses, threatening the failures and commending the successes. After of course exposing one or two cleverly worded lies thanks to Imp – one would think that those who served him would have learned by now that he could always hear them. Or at least to check the ceilings before revealing secrets.

And as usual, they would then file out, leaving him alone. The throne room was well lit, but still. He could hear little beyond his own breathing and the ever present rumble of generators powering the Fright Zone. It was peaceful. And then he heard it. The faint pitter-patter of hair strands tapping against the metal of the air ducts.

Then silence.

His fingers tapped lightly against the armrest of his throne.

There was a faint groan of metal.

Hordak’s ears perked, and he shifted, turning his gaze to his left.

Then came the inevitable clang as the metal grate gave way, and the unmistakeable yelp of surprise from Entrapta as she came tumbling down from on high. He watched her fall, her hair lashing out wildly to grab onto anything it could, turning her tumbling fall to an undignified landing.

The corner of his lip twitched at the sight.

She muttered under her breath before looking about, orientating herself. The woman’s knowledge of the Fright Zone ducts was second to none – well perhaps his, if he bothered with such minutiae. Her eyes met his, and he felt himself stiffen.

A smile blossomed on her face as she darted towards him, and he relaxed. Even after all this time, he still froze before her – wondering whether she would recoil in fear, or let her face fall in pity for his wretched form. But she always just smiled and approached. Always.

Her boots thwacked against the ground as she ran forwards, her hair swishing through the air as she lifted herself up, parking herself on the armrest of his throne as if she were Imp.

It was...strange. How comforting the sounds of her were. Normally, any noise would have had him up and ready for combat, the sound alien in his contemplative silence. In his solitude.

But silence was incompatible with companionship. He had learnt that swiftly in the days following his elevation of Entrapta to the position of his lab partner. At first every move she made had made him start, spinning to see what the source of the noise had been, half expecting a blade or gun to be pointed in his direction.

Only to be confronted with the sheepish grin of the Princess, embarrassed for causing such a reaction in him. Her embarrassment would then spread to him, and he would stiffly turn back to resume working on whatever it was he had been focused on.

Yet in due course he found her noise to no longer be as startling. In fact, it had become a welcome accompaniment to the sounds of his laboratory. Her idle theorising had become as familiar as his own breathing to his ears.

When he had realised that, he had felt a moment of wonder. Perhaps his experiments in improving his body were finally yielding results, maybe his hearing was developing refinements in response to environmental stimuli?

* * *

Science is a broad field. Hordak and Entrapta could both be fairly labelled as scientists, though they knew they had different specialisations. He was more an academic, managing theoreticals. It was easier for him to manage numbers and equations thanks to his programming as a tactician – when he had to balance not just the numbers of soldiers in Prime’s armies, but their equipment and supply chains.

Entrapta on the other hand was an engineer, through and through. She toiled and built where he theorised and calculated. That did not mean he was above work that required actual physical exertion – he just knew it was far from his area of expertise. But that was where Entrapta came in – she was a missing piece he had never even realised was missing. She knew things through experience, like how various imperfections in the metals the Horde mined in the Fright Zone made the materials act in a variety of ways beyond his calculations. How to increase the efficiency of systems by finding shortcuts in wiring since practically any structural weaknesses that would arise out of drilling holes in bulkheads would be inconsequential in the greater scheme of things.

All things Hordak had found distasteful at first – designs falling far short of perfection due to the limited means available to him and the Horde on Etheria. But rather than resent such compromises and shortcomings, Entrapta embraced them, sometimes literally. All to often he had found her tinkering with a robot in their lab, laughing as she was electrocuted or squirted with oil, petting the machine like it were a frightened pet.

Then she would see him watching and immediately wave for him to come join her and offer his input, even though he was far from an expert in mechanics. But he would oblige her, and loom over her and her work. He would smell the ozone permeating her workspace, small sparks flying from her hair to the metal surface of the machine. She would explain a problem she had found and point it out to him, making him lean down to scrutinise the innards of her latest project.

And then over the smell of burnt electrical discharge, he would pickup the other, subtler scents. The leather and rubber of her clothing, the sweat from her brow and shoulders from working, and of course whatever sugary or savoury snack she happened to have hidden away in her pockets that day. It would distract him, but not enough to stop him from offering some ideas that would occur to him, before looking at Entrapta only to find her staring at him with that small smile of hers.

He never did understand why she did that.

Then she would either nod or shake her head, and they would talk. As his lab partner, she never shied away from telling him he was wrong and why, and always immediately dove into a chance to teach him so he would not make that mistake again. It was a more effective approach than Hordak was used to – which involved pointing out failings and leaving the failure to figure out how to best them himself.

And then he would retreat to his own little corner of the laboratory, to run the calculations regarding her suggested ideas, confirming that they would work. But the scents would linger. Of course they would – she had made this part of his sanctum hers as surely as he had, and the faint traces of her presence would be everywhere. Crumbs from the latest snack, a greasy smeared handprint on the edge of a table where she had been lubricating an actuator.

Such things should have offended him. And they had, once. But now...they were proof of her presence. So he would savour the scents she carried with her whenever she brushed past, knowing they were proof of her as much as the odd explosion from a malfunctioning robot somewhere in the Fright Zone.

Scent was a strange thing, he would muse eventually. Especially how intrinsically it would link itself to particular memories. The bland sterile bite he had always known had been a comforting reminder of home, of a time when he had served the Emperor of the Known Universe and known his purpose. And now, he was finding the small yet intrusive smells of work and toil, of hard-won achievement, much more preferable.

* * *

Taste was never something he valued as a sense. Hordak knew from an academic standpoint its importance, and why Horde Prime continued to develop soldiers with the capability. Taste was an identifier, though far too limited in Hordak’s opinion. Any toxins that could be tasted could also be smelt or observed. Also, the drawbacks of tasting poison to identify it were pretty self-explanatory.

It was...an inheritance perhaps, or a gift from Horde Prime – a way for his kin to enjoy finer things on occasion. Hordak never saw the need himself, abstaining from partaking in any of the grand feasts held in Prime’s honour after another conquest. His role was to stand by his brother’s side, his trusted general, and remind everyone else in attendance that the feast and indulgence of Prime was a gift – that the mailed fist of his legions was always poised to crush any resistance at a moments notice.

Personally, he got on fine with the nutrient paste that was provided to him, same as any other clone of Horde Prime. It was a hardy meal, easily stored for long periods of time, which provided all the nutrients a biological body required. Of course, it was difficult for his Horde to endure on, since it had to contend with a number of difficulties such as allergies and preferences. An unsurprising obstacle in logistics when one realized the Etherian Horde was made up of a variety of individuals with their own genetics as opposed to the uniformity of the true Horde.

That is why even though Hordak personally subsisted on what had once been termed by a Force Commander as gruel (apparently for the gruelling task of actually eating it), he had made sure the Fright Zone had areas set aside for dedicated kitchens and canteens to keep the troops fed.

And then Entrapta had come along and all of a sudden he was being presented with foods he had no business eating. It had begun mundanely enough, with the small glasses full of soup she had cooked for him following her discovery of his abysmal physical form. She had prepared it itself, and was evidently no cook, as the smell of the stuff had sent Imp screaming towards the rafters. Hordak had half-expected it to be some form of assassination attempt, and refused to partake.

The Princess had hardly seemed offended, instead working on the root of his problem and...well, that’s when things had become comfortable, for lack of a better term, between them. His weakness had been exposed to her, and she had merely brushed it aside, refusing to focus on it rather than the potential his technology held.

So the next time she had offered him one of her tiny snack meals, he had grumbled but accepted it. It had been one of those small cookies one of the canteens made on occasion, one which had been pretty much claimed by Entrapta as the source of all her nutrition. It had been sweeter than his usual fare, and left his tongue tingling as if local anaesthetic had been applied. It had crumbled in his teeth easily enough, though its nature as a solid food had left him chewing on it for a moment longer than necessary he believed.

Entrapta just seemed to inhale about five of the things. He wasn’t sure when.

Her habit of snacking on anything in her pockets was actually somewhat ingenious – she was able to maintain her energy without having to pause her work to go and eat. It was very much like how soldiers of the Horde would take ration bars with them on missions, saving time on having to scavenge for survival. So he had begun to take his nutrient paste in small ration packs as well, idly sucking on the nozzle whenever a pang of hunger struck him whilst he was working.

Portals were horrifically complicated things, even knowing they were possible. It was taking all his time and focus to -

“Hordak, what are you doing?” Entrapta asked suddenly, looking at him from where she was sitting atop her robotic minion.

He paused, turning to face her and removing the ration pack from his lips. “Trying to adjust the calculations for the new projected energy readings you -”

“No – I mean, what is that?” she said, hopping off her robot and gliding through the laboratory on her hair. Her eyes were wide and sparking with curiosity, a common enough occurrence. Her hair morphed from the broad pillars designed to carry her to the neat small tendrils she used for precision work, pointing at the ration pack in his hand.

“Oh, just nutrients. Nothing more,” the master of the Horde replied, glancing at the small tube. Now that he had a wider repertoire of taste experiences, he could admit that the gruel was bland. Hardly gruelling to ingest as a certain Force Commander had remarked. Boring at best.

“Nutrients? Oooh, you have a mix of all the basic requirements a body needs for healthy operation?” Entrapta asked, fascinated, moving forwards for a closer look.

Hordak took a step back involuntarily as the Princess once more invaded his personal space, his training screaming at him to maintain a safe distance. “Ah, yes,” he managed to reply, looking down at her. Maybe…he moved the hand holding the nutrient tube one way, then the other. Entrapta followed, as if entranced. Hordak could only stare until he found his voice. “Do...do you wish to sample it?”

Her gleaming eyes snapped up to his, a wide smile on her face. “May I?”

“Ah...yes,” he replied, moving to fetch another tube before a thick bundle of her hair wound its way around his hand and jerked it towards her, nearly making him stumble. He glances down at her as he felt her hair gently squeeze his hand, pressing the nutrient gruel out onto her tongue. It flickered back behind her lips as she savoured the taste, adopting a thoughtful expression like she was often did when looking at her favourite minion, Emily.

Hordak was frozen in the moment, at a loss as to what to call...whatever _this_ was, before Entrapta frowned at him. “It’s not very tasty...”

“It’s not meant to be,” he replied automatically. Honestly, he had had this exact discussion so many times until he was able to hand it off onto Shadow Weaver and the Force Captains…

“Ah, I get it. Taste can be a distraction right? And you don’t want anything like that whilst working, oh no. Once, when I was trying to rebuild one of the west wing generators that my old robots used for recharging, I had this candy and it was so sour – like, actually acidic – that it totally threw off my focus. Started an actual fire – fortunately Baker was around with some buckets of water – I think she was helping the Busgirl with some cleaning – so it didn’t spread far.”

Hordak could only nod along, knowing that there was no way of stopping Entrapta when she got caught up like this in whatever was on her mind. He could only open his mouth to interject so many times, only to be bulldozed by her sheer energy, before he recognised a lost cause. That had been weeks ago.

And yet he could not bring himself to just walk away, standing there and listening as she reminisced about her life before the Fright Zone. Before the project became as much her passion as it was his.

* * *

His nails clinked against the metal of his throne, tapping out a faint rhythm. The metal was cool beneath his hand, as it always was. His other hand lay across his lap, where he had taken to keeping it in order to avoid another...incident.

The awkward memory still made him grimace at times. It was foolish and irrational that it should affect him so, but it did. It had been a while ago now, though still clear in his mind. He had dismissed his Force Captains from another review of their progress, and Entrapta had come in to eagerly discuss a new way to focus the lasers in the Horde’s armoury by curving the lenses like in a microscope.

She had gotten close to him again, caught up in her words and eager to see his reaction to her ideas. As if she had never received recognition for her efforts previously. He had reclined in his throne back then, making himself comfortable for the coming discussion, his arms falling to the arm rests – and eliciting a squeak of surprise from Entrapta as his hand fell upon something warm and soft.

It was such...a bizarre sound to hear from her, that he had to turn his head to stare incredulously at the Princess, only to find her perched on the armrest of his throne, his arm laid out across her lap, his hand resting on her thigh.

Hordak snatched his hand away immediately, feeling an uncomfortable heat ripple through him. Judging by the sudden flush on Entrapta’s face, she felt similarly, too taken aback to react further. He averted his gaze, granting her what privacy he could to gather himself, rallying himself as well in the face of this...strangeness. Taking a breath he closed his eyes and counted to five before leaning back in his throne to centre himself, his arms falling onto the – _NOPE_.

Once more he yanked his hand back as if it had been scalded, remembering the feeling of something warm and soft beneath his touch for a fleeting moment, more than enough to renew that prickly heat. He forced his hand down onto his lap instead, and clearing his throat before forcing himself to look at Entrapta again. “Ah, sorry,” he stated with all the decorum he could muster, his fingers flexing as he sought to rid himself of the memory of the brief touch.

It had been so...alien. Novel. A warmth akin to a cooled meal, and a yielding softness like...well, he had no real idea. His mind cast about for something even remotely similar, and it settled on a mattress. Hordak stilled his expression to avoid grimacing at the ridiculousness. A mattress? Of all things - really?

“Oh! It’s-it’s fine. Shouldn’t have just perched up here like that-” Entrapta replied, her hair already moving to lift her off the armrest before Hordak spoke again.

“ _That_ is fine. What just happened just then was not.” Horde Prime may have indulged in touching, but it had never truly been something Hordak understood. Not beyond basic necessity at least. A curious part of him wondered if all of Entrapta was as soft as her thigh.

Probably. He could extrapolate from what information he had well enough. The texture would be different though, her overalls being thick and touch to bear the brunt of her engineering mishaps, whilst her white top was probably smoother, all the easier to be cleaned. And her skin...

He sighed and cradled his face in his hand. Even now, months afterwards, he still had not been able to quell his curiosity. What was even more infuriating was that it was _bothering him at all_. What did he care? It was inconsequential. Something born of an accident, something to be moved on from and forgotten.

Well, not completely forgotten - he had to remember to keep Entrapta’s spot on his throne clear. Hordak was unsure exactly when he had surrendered a part of his throne to her, but the detail did not bother him in the slightest. She was his equal – a brilliant mind coupled with a stubborn and innovative spirit. It only made space she was allowed to share the throne.

And in truth, he welcomed the heat that came with her company, even if it was fraught with risks of awkwardness. There was something...base, about having a source of heat nearby which called to instincts even Horde Prime had been unable to banish from his creations.

* * *

Sensation was not a new thing for Hordak. He had the basic five like any of his kin: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He just...never really thought on them much until Entrapta came along.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame B-Dazzled for this one. They introduced me to this show/fandom/pairing and it kinda stuck. Guess I'm a sucker for villain-esque romances. This is my second foray out of my comfort zone in terms of writing, but honestly, it had to be done. Variety only strengthens one as a writer in my opinion. But yeah, this fic is more a collection of scenes than a real story per say, but eh, my first time writing new characters - so it was always going to be a struggle to write. 
> 
> Hopefully you got some enjoyment out of this!


End file.
